1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game operating device. More specifically, the present invention relates to a game operating device in which a housing is held by one hand and, in that state, operating keys and operating switches arranged on an upper surface and lower surface of the housing are operated.
2. Description of the Related Arts
Conventionally, a typical controller used for playing a game is a controller in which the main body of the controller is held by both hands and the keys are operated with fingers of the both hands.
However, there is a problem with such a controller to be held by both hands where the user's both hands are restrained during the operation and thus he/she cannot do anything else than the operation, resulting in inconvenience for him/her.
As a controller to address such a problem, there is a controller disclosed in the related art, Japanese Patent Laying-open No. 2004-313492 [A63F 13/06].
The controller disclosed in the related art is a controller to be held by both hands and can be divided into right and left parts as necessary. In the divided state, the user holds only one part and performs an operation by means of only the keys arranged on the one part.
The controller described in the patent document 1 is a controller to be held by both hands that is simply divided into two, and its keys are arranged under the assumption that the housing is supported by both hands from the right and left sides. Thus, the controller is not suitable for holding by one hand.
More specifically, the operating keys are arranged on the upper surface and side surfaces. The user operates the keys on the upper surface with thumbs and operates the keys on the side surfaces with index fingers and middle fingers, and needs to support the housing with ring fingers and little fingers against the pressure from the operating fingers. This causes a problem that it is difficult to maintain the holding state with stability and a problem that it is hard to support the housing when no key operation needs to be performed and a finger is moved off the key.
Moreover, as another problem, configuring the controller as to be operated by one hand brings about a decrease in the number of the keys, which imposes a limitation to a degree of flexibility in performing an input operation. In particular, these problems become more pronounced in a case of playing a game because the user is required to operate many buttons on the controller for manipulating a game character and selecting a command.